


Cicadas Sing

by hetalia_textbook



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Post Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:05:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetalia_textbook/pseuds/hetalia_textbook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The American Civil War is over and Alfred is having a rough time putting the pieces back together. Ivan decides to pay him a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cicadas Sing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a present to one of my friends for her birthday. I posted it on Tumblr, but I thought I'd post it here too for anyone else who wants to read it.

There’s something about the summer heat that makes the entire country sluggish and irritable. The doctor had promised him and Mrs. Lincoln that Alfred would be fine. The heart palpitations appeared to be persisting, but he couldn’t find any other reason as to why they were there now that the war had ended. It was summer and Alfred was tired and sickly. They worried for him, but there wasn’t much else they could do.

Alfred pushed himself up from his desk and sat down on his bed. He tugged off his boots and pulled off his socks. The next article of clothing he removed was his heavy overcoat. Tossing the sweat soaked coat onto the floor, Alfred flopped back onto his bed. He huffed as he felt his heart beat a little bit faster. He shouldn’t have worked himself up trying to get his coat off, but he was positive if he wore the customary fashion statement any longer, he’d pass out from heat stroke.

Somewhere in the July heat the cicadas screeched in the distance. It was something he never looked forward to when visiting his southern states. Alfred smirked. Of course, he should be worrying about the mating calls of some hideous insect at a time like this. It’s not as if he hadn’t just added extra deadbolts to his doors to keep out rioters or cleaned up the broken glass splayed across his floor that once had been in his windows. Northerners weren’t very welcome here. Especially Northerners who had come down disguised as a young man from the capital coming to gauge how well the South was taking their losses.

Somewhere among the cicadas’ screams and blistering heat, Alfred fell asleep.

-

Ivan wasn’t very sure of himself. He had made up his mind to see how America was fairing after his nasty civil war, but after hearing from the American’s new boss, that the younger nation had been sent to the southern states to assess how the plans to reunite the country were fairing. Although traveling to see Alfred would mean entering the turmoil that persisted outside of the capital, Ivan decided to go anyway.

The heat was absolutely unbearable and Ivan was sorry he had ever underestimated Southern American summers. Ivan adjusted his shirt collar and wiped sweat from his brow. Ivan checked the address one last time to be sure he had found the correct house, before knocking on the door.

Ivan waited a moment and received no answer. That wasn’t like Alfred at all. Last time Ivan had visited, Alfred came running to the door, never willing to keep anyone waiting for him. Ivan raised his arm to knock on the door again, only for the door to pull away from under his knuckles.

Alfred stood in the doorway. Ivan almost didn’t recognize him. The once lively nation was leaning against the door frame, his hair mused and clothes rumpled. His once glimmering blue eyes were dull with darkening rings hanging beneath them. His skin had lightened up after months of ordered bed rest and lack of sunlight. Alfred had appeared tired and concerned when Alfred had opened first the door, but his fatigued eyes widened at the sight of him.

“Hello, America, I…” Ivan cleared his throat and Alfred sluggishly blinked in response.

“O-Oh,” Alfred stepped back from the door, “I wasn’t expecting you,” Ivan accepted the silent welcome and entered the tiny abode.

“Are you… feeling unwell?” Ivan asked as Alfred cleared a placed for Ivan to sit in the living room. Clothes and papers littered the upholstery and tables.

“Uh… Yeah,” Alfred said, his reflexes slowed, “I’m just… Sorry about the mess, really I am,”

“No, no,” Ivan said kindly, “I understand,”

“Thanks,” Alfred sighed and nearly sat down on the sofa before standing up straight again, “Oh, I-I’m sorry. Would you like something to drink or…?”

“I’m alright,” Ivan responded politely. He would have much rather have something to parch his dry throat and take his mind off the blistering heat of the summer, but forcing Alfred to keep to rules of hospitality when he already looked as though he needed a well deserved rest, seemed harsh and frankly uncalled for. “Let’s just sit,”

“Right,” Alfred mumbled and fell back into the sofa beside him. Ivan sat down with a little more elegance. He watched as Alfred closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “How are you feeling?”

Alfred cracked one eye open and looked in Ivan’s direction dully. “I… I think I’m alright,”

“I do not believe you,” Ivan said quietly, “You do not look well at all,”

“Then why did you ask?” Alfred grumbled and closed his eye again, “Why are you here, Ivan? I didn’t receive a letter about your visit,”

“It was spontaneous, I suppose…” Ivan leaned a little bit toward Alfred, “I wanted to me sure you were… fairing well, after the… split within your nation. I really wish to know the truth, Alfred… How are you?”

Alfred leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees with his head in his hands. “Am I going to die?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Everyone talks about how I’m finally getting what was coming to me, or how they knew it wouldn’t last, o-or even how I’m an idiot for trying to compete with everyone else. Maybe I shouldn’t have… Maybe I should have stayed with England…? Maybe I was wrong all along?”

“…Do you really think that?”

“No!” Alfred sad quickly, but then sagged just a bit more, “Yes? Maybe,”

“I think you were very brave,” Ivan said slowly, making sure Alfred heard him, “I admire you for it,”

“You do?” Alfred asked, “You must be lying,” He had to be lying; it was the only plausible reality Alfred could come up with. Ivan was so much older; had lived for so much longer. He couldn’t possible admire Alfred in return. He hadn’t even lasted 100 years before he began falling apart at the seams.

“It is a rough patch,” Ivan explained, “As nations, it is inevitable,”

“But so soon?!”

“We are all different,”

“What if I don’t survive this?!”

“The war is won. All that it left is to rebuild,”

“How can you be so calm?!” Alfred felt tears prickle his eyes, “I’m… I’m scared…” Alfred looked away, ashamed. Ivan continued to watch him intensely. His eyes were beautiful, but hard and scrutinizing. It hurt to look him in eye. “Everything hurts… No one can agree… I feel like I’m still being torn apart,” Alfred’s voice cracked and he struggled to hide the wave of sobs that threatened to escape him.

“I understand,” Ivan promised, placing a solid and heavy hand on Alfred’s shoulder. He truly did understand.

“Will it ever go away?” Alfred placed a hand over his chest, “Please, say it goes away… this feeling?”

“I know what you want me to say,” Ivan said, “but I will not lie to you. It will not go away… Never has any nation remained politically unified among their people’s views. Once factions are made, there will always be a division,”

“So… It won’t go away?” Alfred leaned into Ivan’s touch and allowed himself to be held around the shoulders.

“No,”

“Okay…” Alfred said quietly and closed his eyes, his head on Ivan’s shoulder, “So, it won’t go away… and it won’t get better either?”

“No, it will get better. You are too strong for that. It will hurt, but you will learn to push past it. It has happened to all of us. You will need to remember these pains. It is said that time heals all wounds, but in my opinion some wounds don’t heal, but you become stronger from them. They remind you of the past and teach you to never relive it. You will be stronger, I know it,”

“…Thank you, Ivan,” Alfred closed his eyes and sighed, his breath ghosting against Ivan’s jaw line. They sat in silence until Alfred’s breathing evened out and he had fallen asleep. Ivan lightly combed his fingers through Alfred’s matted hair.

He watched as tears slowly slipped past Alfred’s fluttering eyelids and rolled down his chin. Ivan delicately wiped them away, although he doubted they would stop any time soon. Alfred was asleep, unguarded and vulnerable. He was losing and regaining bits of himself and grieving all at once. The knowledge Alfred would be losing some of his innocence to the world left a bitter taste in Ivan’s mouth, but he knew it would happen eventually, whether he wanted it to happen or not.

Ivan remained still as Alfred slept, refusing to let himself wake the boy. He listened to the cicadas sing and ignored the heat pooling on his shoulder. Ivan silently promised himself that everything would be okay. America may be split, but he prayed Alfred would remain whole.


End file.
